Nut-Free Schnitzel

As a child, one of my most favourite meals was chicken schnitzel. I had it just about every night. I had it so often that mum and dad gave up with the whole flour and egg thing, and skipped just to the breadcrumbing. So then my grandmother's lovingly made, non skimped chicken schnitzel was a million times better.

The other day, I had an epiphany for a paleo remake of schnitzel, and I wanted to see if I could remake it. I made up a big batch of chicken tenderloins and an eggplant round (to test it out) and lovingly made my non-skimped, paleo schnitzel.

Afterwards, I laid my big chickeny breast schnitzel and the lone breaded eggplant on a bed of shredded and boiled TO PERFECTION Brussels sprouts (they looked so good that even my brother asked if he could 'try the lettuce') and ladled on some of my LINK slow and perfect meat tomato sauce. And it was DIVINE. It looked like heaven too. It seems to be the best meals I don't take photos of.

So I tried to recreate it with the eggplant. I got an eggplant, sliced it up, salted it, let it sit out for a day and a half (the longer, the better!) and got around to making a big batch of eggplant schnitzel.

I laid out my bowls of arrowroot, egg and coconut and the dunking commenced.

The still-wet eggplant rounds were dusted in probably too much arrowroot...

Then covered in egg (sometimes it didn't want to stick)...

And they were given a coating of finely desiccated coconut to schnitzel them up.

There's my first one.

Once I'd made all of them, I glugged out some olive oil (honestly, I suggest using a much more stable oil like tallow or coconut oil, because they ended up tasting very PUFA-y) into two frying pans and plonked them in once the oil was hot.

Back to replicating my perfect tomatoy dish that I made last time, I got a ladle and ladled out some of my pumpkin soup and put it in a pot, and then got a ladle of the worst osso buco of my life (osso buco + water = my hopelessly failed attempt at broth, I had no bones available) and popped that in the same pot. Of course, it wouldn't be the same solanine taste (duh, there's no tomatoes in basic pumpkin soup) but I wanted the same sort of rich, thick, vegetable-creamy (you know what I mean?) ladle sauce to spoon over my schnitzel like a parma. I heated it up, tasted it - still tasted boring, but oh well - and poured it lavishly over the breaded eggplant.

The photos accurately depict the meal's tastiness.

Before Sauce:

After Sauce:

As you can see, the eggplant schnitzel was the ultimate STAR OF THE SHOW and the pumpkin-osso buco-bleugh sauce just ruined it.

You know what also ruined it?

The fact that mum ate the rest of them.

Chicken (or Eggplant) Schnitzel

Serves 4

4 chicken breasts (or 2 large eggplants)

2 cups tapioca starch, tapioca flour or arrowroot

3 eggs (you can go with 2 but it's better to have more)

3 - 4 cups finely desiccated coconut

Stable fat, for frying

If using chicken breasts, cut each breast into three or four equally sized sections (about the size of a tenderloin). If using eggplant, cut into rounds, lay on absorbent something and sprinkle with salt. Let the butter juices leach out for at least 30 mins. Pat down with some more, dry absorbent stuff.

Place the tapioca/arrowroot in a bowl, crack the eggs into a separate bowl, and pour the coconut into a third bowl. Whisk the eggs until combined.

Dip the chicken (or eggplant) pieces, one at a time, into the tapioca/arrowroot, covering the piece. Then dip into the egg, covering the piece, and then into the coconut, then place on a separate plate or dish. Continue with the remaining pieces of chicken/eggplant.

Heat up the fat in a deep frypan. Fry each piece in the fat until cooked on one side, then turn and cook on the other side. Take it out once it is golden brown. Repeat with the remaining pieces until all are cooked.

Serve with vegetables, homemade mayo, melted cheese or some delicious sauce (don't ruin it with a bland sauce!)

NB: Once it's cold, the chicken schnitzel goes a little gummy between the chicken and the arrowroot, so I'm yet to work out a substitution - probably coconut flour. In the mean time, just eat it while it's hot! Not that it's incredibly inedible being a little gummy, it just doesn't stick to the chicken as well.

Better than Baba Ghanoush

The Middle Easterns have their dips down pat. Just look at tahini. Isn't that a fantastic little spread that's a great creamy addition to a lot of stuff? If I don't put olive oil on something, I'll probably drizzle and dollop some tahini on it. But then there's baba ghanoush, which is fantastic made right (or bought) or bad. Real bad.

Ages ago, I came across another dollopy spready purée thing that hails (or seemed like it would hail) from the Middle Eastern area. It was called avjar (pronounced av-yar), but because the blender and I don't have the best relationship, and I'd just eat it all out of the blender as soon as it was made anyway, I gave it a miss.

Today, I was desperate for food so I strolled into some place called 'deli' and picked up some sliced salami and marinated olives, and as she was slicing up my future taco shells (deli meat is THE best for holding food), I turned around to find red jars of, you guessed it, delectable avjar. Take note that I've never tasted it before today, I already knew it would be a spoon of divine Middle Easternness.

And then I looked around a bit more. And I found another jar called malizzano. There was no way I could leave this shop without both jars. Even with the evil oil (sunflower). Sometimes I think it's better to taste things to know what they taste like, even if it means going against ideals you'd normally not stray from. And the jars are from Macedonia, and it looks like they've been made with love.

I should probably mention what these jars are made of before I tuck in with a spoon. They're very similar; they're both a simple blend of roasted capsicum and roasted eggplant, but obviously the avjar is red capsicum and the malizzano is green. It's quite strange, though, how they taste a lot different to what they're made of. I reckon they'd both taste good mixed with either roasted tomatoes, tahini or maybe paprika or cinnamon or some other spices, or maybe all three. Oh and garlic. It almost tastes like it already has garlic in it. Or some soft white cheese if dairy's your style.

I'm not quite sure what to eat it with, but my options so far are from a spoon, simmer and cook eggs in it like shakshuka, or obviously as a dip with some veggie sticks. I had a google search around and found that it's good for salad dressings, meat marinades and as a lasagna sauce. Can't wait to try it all!

It's Coco Snow, Yo

Let's just face the fact that I'm never going to be bothered enough to make a proper, smooth, nut or anything butter. Butters that don't come from a cow (and really, aren't real butters) all seem far too laborious to make. I think the title of 'Butter' should only really go to raw dairy milk that gets shaken up, but for now I'll continue calling it 'peanut butter' and 'almond butter' for the sake of ease.

Like, why has it taken me over an hour to get to some sort of stage where both me and my blending ingredient - coconut - can agree with? Yeah, ok, so maybe I've done other things between blend and shake my blender around and have tantrums at it but let's forget about that... Everyone else's takes twenty minutes! Why does my blender not accept the fact that I'm trying to make it a Vitamix?

Remember that coconut I cracked a few days ago? This is the result from that, high expectations and not wanting to spend $9 on an Artisana more-like-just-a-taste Coconut Butter jar. Stupid curiousity makes me want to shove fresh coconut into a blender and perform some sort of HIIT arm workout to make it spreadable. Would a normal person do that? I'm not even sure. Is there much point to making blended coconut? I'm really not sure. Apparently it's nice, when it gets to butter. But, of course, my blender does not contain the engine of a fighter jet so a velvety, creamy jar of spreadable stuff is not what's going to happen.

So we had to negotiate a middle ground.

Thai Chilli Coconut Roast

What do you do when you want beachy, summery flavours and a comforting wintery meal? You combine them of course! Last night it was a little colder than usual but I felt like a bit of chilli and coconut so I came up with a bit of a concoction:

Coconut oil
Chilli flakes
Cayenne pepper
Desiccated coconut
Thai seasoning



And mixed my chicken breast into it. If I wasn't being so lazy, I would've made more and mixed the veggies in it, but the coconut oil was in the fridge so I had to scrape it out instead of scooping it out. I need a small jar of it to keep in the cupboard for easier use. If you don't have coconut oil, feel free to use a light oil or some olive oil (my veggies got a dash of EVOO - extra virgin olive oil). It shouldn't make too much of a difference.